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Biliary Hamartoma

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So this patient's an 80-year-old female

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history is to evaluate for a pancreatic mass.

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I'm sure we're going to ignore the

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pancreas, ignore everything else.

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We're going to focus just on the liver.

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As we scroll downwards, we're

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seeing numerous tiny liver cysts.

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Right?

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They're everywhere, sort of scattered

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throughout the liver, all the

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hepatic lobes; let's zoom in on them.

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And I think one of the things that is

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important to notice is when I said they

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were tiny, they're very, very small.

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If you were to measure any of

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these, I doubt you would get above a

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centimeter, maybe a centimeter at most.

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Most of these are much less than that.

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And most are probably about

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five millimeters or less.

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And they're sort of scattered

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everywhere throughout the liver.

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Look at our coronal T2-weighted

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image; it shows you the same finding.

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Numerous, innumerable even; you can't

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even count them, there's so many cysts

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that are scattered throughout the liver.

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We gave contrast; these behave like cysts.

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These will not enhance, really dark

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circles that are sort of littered

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throughout the liver parenchyma.

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Now, I must say, this in and of itself

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is sort of a nonspecific finding, right?

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You can just say that the patient

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happens to have numerous liver cysts.

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So which happened to be very

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tiny and, and let it be like that.

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But when you see so many liver cysts

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like this, that are all very, very small,

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certainly, you know, less than 10 millimeters,

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certainly less than 15 millimeters.

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One of the things you want to think about

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is this entity of biliary hematomas.

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These are also known as von Mayenberg complexes.

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It's a finding that's thought to be congenital.

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Histologically, what they find is that these

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represent very small noncommunicating ducts

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that are embedded inside a dense fibrous stroma.

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What you need to know is that they are almost

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always asymptomatic, almost always incidental,

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really have very little to no clinical

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significance, except for the fact that you

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should just know what they are and you can

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suggest it and know how to differentiate

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these from other entities that can give, you

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know, liver cysts such as Caroli's disease or

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autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.

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And what really differentiates this

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from those other entities is the

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fact that the cysts are very small.

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As I said, almost all of them are

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less than 15 millimeters, but in

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reality even a lot smaller than that.

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And the patient is otherwise healthy.

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Lab values are good and no issues that

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are related, uh, you know, in terms

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of abnormal liver function tests.

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And so, I thought this was just a nice

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example of these biliary hematomas,

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also known as von Mayenberg complexes.

Report

Faculty

Mahan Mathur, MD

Associate Professor, Division of Body Imaging; Vice Chair of Education, Dept of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

Yale School of Medicine

Tags

Other Biliary

MRI

Liver

Idiopathic

Gastrointestinal (GI)

Congenital

CT

Body

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